Sunday, October 17, 2004

OK, I'm ready for the media to reveal to me who are the anti-occupation political candidates in Iraq. What are their talking points? What have they said in their speeches? Show me their political advertisements (in translation, please).

These candidates must exist, must have had a lot to say by now, if the process in Iraq is at all democratic. Iraqi public opinion is strongly anti-occupation. To not have this view represented, among others, would make a joke, a charade, of the whole business.

So, please lift the curtain. Let's not be covert. Show us the Iraqi debates. Show us now, not after November 2.

Or, if these debates have not been occurring, then another conclusion must be reached: no real democracy is planned, and democracy in Iraq is not really the goal of the current troop deployment.

Saddam has been captured, compliance with the UN's no-WMD directives have been confirmed. The US should be free to declare mission accomplished and withdraw, since apparently democracy in Iraq is not really the policy goal, is just made-for-TV fluff (that's how it's looking, absent any media coverage that would lead me to think otherwise).

By definition, the US military can't be used as the tool of an alien ideology to scam the American people. Such actions would be anti-Constitution, and the US military, insofar as it exists, is loyal to the Constitution.

So despite all the decals, the military in Iraq is starting to look a lot like it's under the command of some anti-USA foreign power (media coverage of a genuine political debate in Iraq would help counter this perception -- show us we're not being systematically lied to).

So my message to the media is this: show us that the Iraqi democratic process is genuine, or let's be clear that a foreign military, posing as the USA's, is in cahoots with some secretive alien ideology that would scam the American people.

I ask again: has the US military been replaced by a private mercenary force working hand in glove with hidden bosses to hoodwink the USA's citizens, to make them think one thing (that democracy is really a goal in Iraq), while meanwhile it secretly plans something else?